Good afternoon.
My name is Jennifer Lutfallah, and I am the vice-president of the commercial and trade branch at the Canada Border Services Agency. I have with me Doug Band, the director general of trade and anti-dumping programs, as well as Mike Leahy, director general of commercial projects.
Madam Chair and members of the committee, I appreciate the opportunity to contribute to the committee's study on Canadian businesses in supply chains and global markets and share with the committee the initiatives, tools and programs that the CBSA administers to support the growth of Canadian businesses.
First and foremost, I would like to bring to the attention of the committee that the CBSA has a broad mandate. We are responsible for providing integrated border services that support national security and public safety priorities, while also facilitating the free flow of persons and goods and collecting revenue owed to the Crown.
The CBSA enforces more than 100 acts and regulations on behalf of other government departments, ensuring that goods being imported or exported are compliant with Canadian trade laws and international trade agreements, which includes the proper assessment of duties and taxes owing on imported goods. We conduct regular compliance verification audits and deliver programs on behalf of the Department of Finance that support Canadian businesses.
For example, the CBSA administers the Special Import Measures Act on behalf of Finance Canada through the anti-dumping and countervailing program, which helps protect Canadian producers who face unfair foreign competition in the Canadian marketplace from injury caused by the dumping or subsidizing of imported goods.
Two other programs we administer on behalf of Finance Canada are the duty relief program and the duty drawback program. While our trade remedy system helps preserve a fair and open trading environment for domestic producers, both programs support the competitiveness of Canadian companies in the global market. Through these programs, qualified companies can import goods without paying duties, or may be reimbursed for duties paid on the condition that the imported goods are subsequently exported within a specific time period.
The CBSA also continues to modernize its border management processes by introducing new technologies to expedite the flow of goods and people across the border. CARM is a multiphased project designed to modernize the collection of duties and taxes for commercial goods imported into Canada. It will replace a 36-year-old legacy system which is at continued high risk of outage. It will help to protect and grow over $750 billion in trade and approximately $40 billion in revenue collected at the border each year.
On May 13 of this year, CARM will become the official system of record for the collection of duties and taxes. It will benefit trade chain partners by simplifying the overall importing process, providing a modern interface for importing into Canada. It will give importers self-service access to their information and it will digitize paper-based processes and improve consistency of compliance with trade rules.
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. We would be happy to take any questions you may have.